Korea: The War Before Vietnam (review)

Abstract

1 84BOOK REVIEWS I am also struck by the absence of certain topics and issues from United States-Korea Relations. For example, there is no discussion whatsoever of the 1980 Kwangju uprising, not even in Robert Scalapino's concluding essay. Few recent events have had a stronger impact upon Korean politics in the 1980s. Moreover America's response, or nonresponse, to Kwangju, including stories of direct U.S. collaboration with the South Korean military, is often cited as the single most important reason for the rise of anti-Americanism in contemporary South Korea.3 Another topic that might have been discussed in greater detail is that of reunification. Like Kwangju this is an issue that has helped to fuel the fires of major protests across much of South Korea. It is also an issue that will deeply affect the Korean-American relationship in the years ahead. Despite such omissions United States-Korean Relations makes an important contribution to Korean studies, as well as to American foreign policy studies. Indeed those who will benefit most from this book are likely to be generalists lacking specialized training in either Korean studies or United StatesKorean relations. With few exceptions the various essays are well organized and well written, and will be easy for the nonspecialist to follow. This volume is also important because it provides us with a gauge by which to measure the dramatic changes that have occurred in Korea during the second half of the 1980s. The essays were written before the historic events of 1987-88 that led to the creation of a new national constitution, the holding of direct presidential elections, and the formation of a new national assembly frequently dominated by opposition parties. Yet for all these changes, many of the issues that are raised in United States-Korean Relations continue to be of great importance: growing trade tensions, social and cultural interactions, security needs, and the role that America is to play, if any, in Korea's future. Robert R. Swartout, Jr. Carroll College NOTES 1 . See, for example, Korea and the United States: A Century of Cooperation, edited by Youngnok Koo and Dae-Sook Suh (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984); After One Hundred Years: Continuity and Change in Korean-American Relations, edited by Sung-joo Han (Seoul: Asiatic Research Center, Korea University, 1982); and Reflections on a Century of United States-Korean Relations, edited by Ronald A. Morse (Lanham, Maryland : University Press of America, 1983). 2.See such studies as Bruce Cumings's The Origins of the Korean War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945-1947 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981); The Road to Confrontation: American Policy Toward China and Korea, 1947-1950, by William W. Stueck, Jr. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981); and Russell Buhite's Soviet-American Relations in Asia, 1945-1954 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982). 3.For a valuable recent examination of the Kwangju uprising within the context of Korean-American relations, see The Kwangju Uprising: Shadows over the Regime in South Korea, edited by Donald N. Clark (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988). Korea: The War Before Vietnam, by Callum A. MacDonald. New York: The Free Press, 1986. xx + 330 pp. Maps, plates, chronology , bibliography, index. Cloth, $24.95. BOOK REVIEWS185 The past several years have witnessed a renewed interest in the Korean War (1950-53) in the academic community, manifested most noticeably by the number of titles which have recently appeared. This latest volume, despite the less than illuminating subtitle, is a welcome addition to this growing literature. Callum MacDonald is a Lecturer in Comparative American Studies at the University of Warwick. He is also the author of The United States, Britain and Appeasement, 1936-39. The bulk of the book (Part One) is entitled "War and Politics," while a smaller section (Part Two) is entitled "The Problems of a Limited War." Documents in the British Foreign Office appear to form the base of the author's research. The focus is on alliance politics, mainly the problems which the Korean War created for the Anglo-American alliance. Even before the outbreak of the war there had been substantial disagreement over policy in Asia, where the...